The home side continued in much the same vein after the break and substitute goalkeeper Hilario, on after 63 minutes for the injured Petr Cech, made a fine save from a Roque Santa Cruz header.

Even six minutes of added time for Cech's injury was not enough for Blackburn to grab an equaliser and Steven Reid and David Bentley's efforts which both hit the cross bar was the eventual difference between the two sides.

This game saw Hughes become Rovers longest serving manager in the Premiership but one victory in his last eight league games is no cause for celebration.

"It's becoming very frustrating," lamented Hughes.

"I thought we showed great character in the first half and showed good dynamics with our passing. We created chances, hit the bar a couple of times and on another day they go in.

"And then we got done with sucker punch. We had talked about giving the ball away on the half way line as they have the quality to set traps for you on the break and that is what happened.

"In the second half although we continued to show good quality but it was difficult to draw Chelsea out as they are very adept at defending a lead.

"In fairness in the last ten to fifteen minutes they just ran the clock down and made it difficult for us to regain our momentum.

"Against lesser opposition those chances would have gone in and we would have won that game, but overall I was satisfied with our performance against top class opposition.

"In other matches I could be critical of the players, but not today. We are still six or seven points better off than we were this time last year so we are still ahead of the game."